2005 World Championships for Young Dressage Horses

Belgian Selection Trial: A Leap of Faith for Aros and Ludo Verbraeken

The horse and rider, the owners, the trainer, the breedersAlthough there was much hope in camp "De Steppe" for the qualification of Aros for Verden, not the rider, nor the trainer, nor the owner, nor breeder dared to dream of a selection. When Aros' name was called at the proclamation, the whole table cheered and tears were shed. It was a dream come true.

Second placed and, therefore, qualified for Verden was the black Belgian warmblood gelding Aros. Presented by Ludo Verbraeken of dressage stable De Steppe in Mol, Aros entered the ring with terror in his body. The long legged gelding, who stands out with his natural uphill gaits and immense self carriage, looked like a scared puppy dog and held himself throughout the trot tour. Nevertheless, Aros showed a balanced, correct and lightfeeted trot, but he did not even demonstrate half his potential. In the canter, he loosened up a bit and the big, ground covering strides were very obvious in the left extended trot. Unfortunately, Aros broke twice into trot in the counter canter and his rider had to fix the problem quickly, so that he could still do the simple change of leg. In the medium walk, Aros had one hoof overtrack.

arosBoth Aros' rider and trainer were uncertain whether the horse would make the cut, because of the mistakes in the test, but fortunately the black had shown flashes of his potential, so they were crossing their fingers hoping that the judges had seen it. At the proclamation, it turned out that Aros had scored 78.60 points in finished in second place. Judge Mariette Withages commented that "Aros is the best quality horse in the 5-year old division, but it was a very close call and we had a strong discussing going whether to take him or the third placed horse."

The Belgian selectors took 'a leap of faith' in selecting Aros. They based their decision on the quality of the gaits and conformation they had seen at this trial. With one month extra time for training before the Championships in Verden, Aros should be fully ready for it and will definitely not be a gray mouse in the pack.

ArosAros is a Belgian warmblood by Saros van het Gestelhof out of a State Premium Mare by Donnerschlag. He is bred by Willie Kuipers and owned by Andre and Germaine Joosten from Lommel. Andre Joosten has green broken and trained Aros under the supervision of Kristina Geerts at dressage stable De Steppe in Mol. The original plan was for Geerts to present the horse at the trial, but she had to undergo minor surgery to her leg six weeks ago and could not recover in time to compete the horse. Her partner Ludo Verbraeken took over the ride and only sat on the horse 7 times before the trial.

When Aros' qualification was announced, Germaine Joosten burst into tears. "I didn't even want to come to Brussels, because it's so far away from home. I normally just do the 20 minutes trailering from Lommel to Mol and that's it," she said. Germaine was shocked when she heard the drive to Verden would take six hours. "I'm not going; it's too far," she joked.

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